I talked about the political ads on the air earlier this week, and I’ve been trying to watch some more to get a perspective about where the dialog is in the race. After substantial minutes watching 30-second spots, the phrase “eyes spinning like pinwheels” comes to mind.

Overall, the tone of the ad is defensive, and its attempt to parry Berg’s ill-defined stance on Social Security and Medicare into another untruthful attack on the Affordable Care Act is only going to resonate with those who already want to agree.

In short, the ad is not so much persuasive as it is evasive. That’s Rick Berg in a nutshell.

It may surprise you to learn that even in boomtime North Dakota, there’s still 59,000 people on SNAP*. Maybe poverty is a problem that you can’t just hand-wave away, and there needs to be a resource of last resort if you don’t want people dying of starvation. Continue reading →

Heidi vs. Rick has easily become the filthiest campaign I can remember. In some respects this is a positive indicator — if national cash was out of the race there’d be hardly a peep from the League. Then again, I’m still one of those people that prefers policy over pandering.

Even with petro-devastation in Western North Dakota, the tone of Heidi’s anti-crime ads doesn’t make me think of the present, it just reminds me that the last time Heidi was in circulation was in the late 90s.

Heidi’s bipartisan leadership on the eminent domain issue seems like something better to run on. It happened relatively recently, appeals to the anti-gubmint types, and it at least points somewhat in the direction of a positive vision. There’s even a renewable energy tie-in to make, which would go a long way to soothing my hesitation to embrace Senator Heitkamp.